The Director as Collaborator teaches essential directing skills while emphasizing how directors and theater productions benefit from collaboration. Good collaboration occurs when the director shares responsibility for the artistic creation with the entire production team, including actors, designers, stage managers, and technical staff. Leadership does not preclude collaboration; in theater, these concepts can and should be complementary. Students will develop their abilities by directing short scenes and plays and by participating in group exercises. New to the second edition: updated interviews, exercises, forms, and appendices new chapter on technology including digital research, previsualization and drafting programs, and web-sharing sites new chapter on devised and ensemble-based works new chapter on immersive theater, including material and exercises on environmental staging and audience–performer interaction

Mandy Rees and John Staniunas offer a set of strategies to help directors and actors work together more effectively, from starting the first rehearsals to maintaining a long-running show.

Terry McCabe, himself an accomplished stage director and teacher of theatre arts, here attacks what he calls the growing decadence that plagues contemporary stage directing. He argues for a radical reorganization of the director’s view of his role. It has become an article of faith in the theatre, Mr. McCabe observes, that a play is about what the director chooses to have it be about. But what right does a director have to treat a play as a found object, to be reshaped to express the director’s concerns? None whatsoever, Mr. McCabe replies. He examines anecdotally a range of work by different directors by way of offering a substantial critique of today’s leading theory of stage directing, and he offers an alternate approach. He challenges the notion that a play is the director’s vehicle for self-expression, arguing that the idea of the director as centerpiece of the theatre tends to distort plays and oppress actors. He explores what it means to direct a play when directing is properly understood as a process of self-effacement. Mis-directing the Play examines the role of the director as collaborator with actors, designers, dramaturges, and playwrights. Throughout, the book’s focus is on shedding the counterproductive myth of the director as creative auteur and urging in its place a return to first principles: the idea of the director as the interpretive artist in charge of putting the playwright’s play onstage.

The Director as Collaborator teaches essential directing skills while emphasizing how directors and theatre productions benefit from collaboration. Good collaboration occurs when the director shares responsibility for the artistic creation with the entire production, including actors, designers, stage managers and technical staff. Leadership does not preclude collaboration; in theatre, these concepts can and should be complementary. Students will develop their abilities by directing short scenes and plays and by participating in group exercises.

This volume assesses the contributions of David Belasco, Arthur Hopkins, and Margaret Webster, whose careers shaped the artistic and specialist identity of the Broadway director. Their work spans almost a century and captures the rapidly changing social and cultural landscape of 20th-century America. While their aesthetic styles differed greatly, they were united in their mastery of theatre craft and their impact on theatrical collaboration. The essays in this volume explore how these directors established and exploited Broadway as the epicentre of theatre in the United States, blended the role of producer and director, and managed the tensions between commercial success and artistic ambition. The Great North American Stage Directors series provides an authoritative account of the art of directing in North America by examining the work of twenty-four major practitioners from the late 19th century to the present. Each of the eight volumes examines three directors and offers an overview of their practices, theoretical ideas, and contributions to modern theatre. The studies chart the life and work of each director, placing his or her achievement in the context of other important theatre practitioners and broader social history. Written by a team of leading experts, the series presents the genealogy of directing in North America while simultaneously chronicling crucial trends and championing contemporary interpretation.

An introduction to the mysterious theater role of a dramaturg by a legend in the field "This book is marvelous. . . . Fascinating. . . . An absolute joy to read."--Gil Roth, Virtual Memories podcast Anne Cattaneo was among the first Americans to fill the role of dramaturg, one of theater's best kept secrets. A combination of theater artist, scholar, researcher, play advocate, editor, and writer's friend, it is the job of a dramaturg to "reflect light back on the elements that are already in play," while bringing a work of theater to life. Cattaneo traces the field from its beginnings in the eighteenth century to the present and chronicles the multitude and variety of tasks a dramaturg undertakes before, during, and after a production is brought to the stage. Using detailed stories from her work with theater artists such as Tom Stoppard, Wendy Wasserstein, Robert Wilson, Shi-Zheng Chen, and Sarah Ruhl, as well as the discovery of a "lost" play by Langston Hughes and Zora Neale Hurston, Cattaneo provides an invaluable manual to those studying, working in, and interested in this most fascinating profession.

Ch. 1. From idea to cinematic stories -- Ch. 2. The screenplay -- Ch. 3. The visual language and aesthetics of cinema -- Ch. 4. Organizing cinematic time and space -- Ch. 5. From screenplay to visual plan -- Ch. 6. Preparing for production -- Ch. 7. The cast and crew -- Ch. 8. The film system -- Ch. 9. The digital video system -- Ch. 10. The lens -- Ch. 11. Camera support -- Ch. 12. Basics of exposure -- Ch. 13. Basic lighting for film and DV -- Ch. 14. Lighting and exposure : beyond the basics -- Ch. 15. Sound for production -- Ch. 16. Production sound tools -- Ch. 17. Sound recording technique -- Ch. 18. On set! -- Ch. 19. Postproduction overview and workflow -- Ch. 20. Principles and process of digital editing -- Ch. 21. The art and technique of editing -- Ch. 22. The sound design in film -- Ch. 23. Cutting sound and working with multiple tracks -- Ch. 24. Finishing, mastering, and distribution -- App. 1. Production format workflow table -- App. 2. Common filters for black-and-white cinematography -- App. 3. How to calibrate a field monitor to NTSC color bars -- App. 4-1. Scheduling, budgeting, and production forms -- App. 4-2. Short film budget form -- App. 4-3. Script breakdown form -- App. 4-4. Storyboards 1 -- App. 4-5. Storyboards 2 -- App. 4-6. Production call sheet form -- App. 4-7. Sound report form -- App. 4-8. Camera report form -- App. 5-1. Talent release form -- App. 5-2. Location contract form -- App. 6. 16mm film camera depth of field tables.